Last month Bungie revealed its next project as Destiny, and described it as an online shared-world shooter. It’s a massive undertaking that’s expected to have a 10-year lifecycle, with the first game arriving for PS3 and Xbox 360 on December 31 (although I suspect that will be pushed back to 2014). Next-gen consoles will inevitably also be supported.

With less than 10 months until that tentative release date, and this being an online game, Bungie will need to do some external testing with a few thousand gamers at least. That’s why yesterday Bungie’s senior user interface designer David Candland sent out the tweet you see below:

As well as acting as a warning not to trust third-parties offering access to Destiny early, following the included link takes you to the Bungie user research page. There you can sign up to be a beta tester and gain the chance to actually play the game on your console, probably months before release.

All it takes to sign up is an email address and access to an Xbox Live, PSN, Facebook, or Google+ account. If you have one of those, you’ll be able to join the pool of thousands of others hoping they get selected. All Bungie is promising is that they will select gamers “from all regions and territories around the world.” Testing also isn’t limited to playing the game. You may be asked to fill out surveys or carry out some usability testing that doesn’t require an actual game be downloaded and played.